Demos: Gop Easing On Medicare But Republican Leader Declares Direction On Cuts Remains Firm
Democrats declared confidently on Thursday that they were winning the battle over Medicare, but Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said they were “whistling past the graveyard.”
The Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said moderate Republicans were now expressing doubts about the wisdom of cutting projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid by $452 billion, or 16 percent, over seven years, as demanded by the Republican leaders.
Daschle said the Republican package was unraveling as “more and more Republicans are coming to the realization that it’s wrong.”
But in an interview on Thursday, Barbour said: “We will win this battle. Democrats will be shrill, emotional and deceptive, but saving Medicare will be a plus for us in the 1996 election.” Barbour said he saw no evidence of erosion in Republicans’ support for their party’s proposals, which would curb Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals and give beneficiaries new opportunities to enroll in private health plans.
The Senate Finance Committee is drafting legislation on Medicare, the federal program for the elderly and disabled, and Medicaid, which serves the poor, as part of a comprehensive bill to balance the budget over seven years.
By a party-line vote of 11-9, the Finance Committee rejected on Wednesday a Democratic alternative to the Republican plan for overhauling Medicare. Thursday’s session of the committee was delayed by wrangling over issues like abortion and the formula for distributing federal Medicaid money to states. Two House committees have deferred votes on companion legislation until Oct. 10 at the earliest.
In the House, Rep. Sander M. Levin, D-Mich., who helps supervise Medicare as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said that House Republicans were “bumbling and stumbling.”
“They’ve got a bear by the tail, and now it’s beginning to bite them,” Levin said, referring to Republican efforts to deal with Medicare and its 37 million beneficiaries.
Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-Conn., said when people saw the text of the Medicare legislation, they will conclude that “this is not devastating, this is survivable, this is reasonable.”
But Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., said she was concerned about the effects of the Medicare proposals. She noted recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office showing that most of the $270 billion in Medicare savings - $152 billion over seven years - would be achieved by limiting payments to doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and home-care agencies.
“These are sobering numbers,” she said in an interview. “They open up a number of concerns about whether the savings will come through a reduction of care or through the new choices that people are given.”
The House and Senate bills would both dismantle the current Medicaid program and give each state a fixed amount of federal money to help care for poor people. In the text of a speech to be delivered Friday to state Medicaid directors, Donna E. Shalala, the secretary of health and human services, says: “Under the House plan, the State of New York stands to lose $24.6 billion in federal Medicaid funds over the next seven years. Under the Senate plan, New York loses $21.5 billion. Republicans in the Senate like to describe that as a gain of $3 billion. I say a cut is a cut.”